Monday, May 23, 2016

When I started blogging in 2009, it was a different world, as far as blogs and news websites were concerned. Outside the mainstream news websites, the choice of liberal and progressive websites was rather limited. Back then, my "first choice of the day" usually was the good old "Huffington Post." There was "Alternet", there was "Think Progress", and as far as I can remember, "Raw Story", today a pretty important website, was still quite small back then.

These days, there is much more choice, and not just that. I think that the "quality" of liberal news has increased over time as well. Not only have some websites become much more professional in my opinion, like "Raw Story", but several new websites have been added to the mix. One of the most remarkable of these new websites is "Vox", which was only founded in April 2014, so it is still very young in comparison. But its contributions have already been excellent, and especially the emphasis on science and data differentiates "Vox" from the competition, The website already "left a mark."

So it seems appropriate to highlight this website in a post, especially since they recently published some very good articles about the rise of "American authoritarianism", and about Donald Trump, and that's exactly what we need these days, because knowledge is power.

Norm Ornstein: When you look at populism over the longer course of both American history and other countries that have suffered economic traumas as a result of financial collapse, you’re gonna get the emergence of some leaders who exploit nativism, protectionism, and isolationism. They’re components — sometimes greater, sometimes lesser — that are baked into the process. So you’ve got a bit of that.

But if you forced me to pick one factor explaining what's happened, I would say this is a self-inflicted wound by Republican leaders.

Over many years, they've adopted strategies that have trivialized and delegitimized government. They were willing to play to a nativist element. And they tried to use, instead of stand up to, the apocalyptic visions and extremism of some cable television, talk radio, and other media outlets on the right.

And add to that, they've delegitimized President Obama, but they've failed to succeed with any of the promises they've made to their rank and file voters, or Tea Party adherents. So when I looked at that, my view was, "what makes you think, after all of these failures, that you're going to have a group of compliant people who are just going to fall in line behind an establishment figure?"

Trump clearly had a brilliant capacity to channel that discontent among Republican voters — to figure out the issues that’ll work, like immigration, and the ways in which populist anger and partisan tribalism can be exploited. So of course, to me, he became a logical contender.

This is exactly "it." Donald Trump did not come from "nowhere", but he benefited from a Republican strategy that existed for many years - I would call it "making a mockery out of Democracy." Ultimately, the country will pay to price for disrespecting the democratic institutions, rules and culture.

Perhaps strangest of all, it wasn't just Trump but his supporters who seemed to have come out of nowhere, suddenly expressing, in large numbers, ideas far more extreme than anything that has risen to such popularity in recent memory. In South Carolina, a CBS News exit poll found that 75 percent of Republican voters supported banning Muslims from the United States. A PPP poll found that a third of Trump voters support banning gays and lesbians from the country. Twenty percent said Lincoln shouldn't have freed the slaves.

Last September, a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst named Matthew MacWilliams realized that his dissertation research might hold the answer to not just one but all three of these mysteries.

MacWilliams studies authoritarianism — not actual dictators, but rather a psychological profile of individual voters that is characterized by a desire for order and a fear of outsiders. People who score high in authoritarianism, when they feel threatened, look for strong leaders who promise to take whatever action necessary to protect them from outsiders and prevent the changes they fear.

So MacWilliams naturally wondered if authoritarianism might correlate with support for Trump.

He polled a large sample of likely voters, looking for correlations between support for Trump and views that align with authoritarianism. What he found was astonishing: Not only did authoritarianism correlate, but it seemed to predict support for Trump more reliably than virtually any other indicator.

The Republican party thought, in 2012, that its challenge would be to expand its coalition of voters enough to make the party nationally viable again. But it turns out to be facing an even worse and more urgent problem: the coalition it already has.

That coalition is dividing in two, split between Republicans as we typically know them — social conservatives who believe in small government, low taxes, and limited regulation — and a newly active block of voters known as authoritarians, defined not by demographics but by psychological profile. Authoritarians are hostile to outgroups and embrace aggressive, punitive policies toward them, including harsh anti-immigration laws and aggressive, militaristic foreign policy. But they aren't particularly interested in the traditional Republican economic agenda. Indeed, they're uninterested in tax cuts, protective of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, and skeptical of foreign trade.

The GOP is essentially now two parties in a shaky, contentious coalition. These two factions want different policies and different kinds of politics. Their split has made the 2016 GOP primary one of the strangest and most shocking political developments in a generation, but there is more to come.

The authoritarians, in the coming years, will not break the GOP, but they will deeply alter its electoral politics. They will likely put the White House out of Republicans' reach. In Congress and in state legislatures, they will make GOP caucuses more unruly and more extreme, worsening polarization and gridlock. They will weaken the party as an institution, opening up more right-wing primary challenges and an even greater role for outside donors.

They could bring, in other words, an era of Republican politics that combines the disruption and chaos of the Tea Party with the divisive, xenophobic policies and politics of Donald Trump playing out across the electoral map.

The University of Wisconsin's Stanley Payne, author of Fascism: Comparison and Definition and A History of Fascism, 1914–1945, emphasizes that fascism is a "revolutionary nationalist project. Not just a nationalist project, but a nationalist project that is revolutionary and breaks down all the standards and the barriers." Trump and other far-right populists don't count.

"It's what you'd call a right-wing populist movement," he says of the Trump campaign. "They take conservative positions that were very common, say, 75 years ago or 100 years ago, and not at all common now. … You can call them more genuinely reactionary in their discourse. They go back to older kinds of political and social values that have been discarded. That would be a more accurate characterization than calling them fascist."

Payne also notes that Trump lacks a connection to the pro-violence philosophy at the heart of fascism. This dates back to Georges Sorel, a French syndicalist philosopher who was revered by Mussolini and the Italian fascists. Sorel praised violence as a necessary tool of the class struggle. "Proletarian violence … appears thus as a very fine and heroic thing," he writes. "It is at the service of the immemorial interests of civilization; it is not perhaps the most appropriate method of obtaining immediate material advantages, but it may save the world from barbarism." King's College London's Jeremy Jennings, in an introduction to a recent edition of Sorel's Reflections on Violence, writes that Sorel is "prepared to equate [violence] with life, creativity, and virtue."

While fascists obviously don't share Sorel's interest in the class struggle, this valorization of violence carried over. Fascism, Payne says, requires "a philosophical valuing of violence, of Sorelian violence. [Fascists believe] that violence is really good for you, that it's the sort of thing that makes you a vital, alive, dedicated person, that it creates commitment. You make violence not just a political strategy but a philosophical principle. That's unique to fascism."

Monday, May 16, 2016

Twitter is buzzing with messages about Sarah Palin again, after Ben Carson revealed that she is on Donald Trump's VP-shortlist. The most insufferable presidential candidate of all times together with the most insufferable VP-candidate of all times: What sounds like a very surreal dream will also remain a "dream." Sarah Palin fled from public scrutiny when she suddenly abandoned her quest to become the US president in October 2011. What came as a surprise for many people back then, did not come as a surprise for us.

There can hardly be any doubt that Sarah Palin is one the most unpopular political figures these days. You only need to take a look at twitter, where 99 percent of all messages about her are negative. She definitely would be Donald Trump's downfall, but this is not necessarily why she won't be Trump's VP in the end, as Donald Trump is certainly capable of committing such a "blunder" in my opinion.

The mainstream media used to treat Sarah Palin with kid gloves, and took her far too seriously. There were times when the media was intimidated by Palin and her fanatical followers, and while the media certainly does not want to be reminded of this fact, I still remember it very well. For example, back in 2010, when I was blogging at Palingates about Sarah Palin virtually every day, it was a daily struggle against media ignorance, and it was incredibly important to expose the "real Sarah."

These days, it is also easy to forget how popular Sarah Palin actually was until she folded in October 2011. Far too many conservatives really liked her, and only several years later most of them started to see the "real Sarah." Today, the most active "anti-Palin blogs" are websites like "Red State" and "The Right Scoop", and this is a truly amazing development, and one step towards a more sane political environment (a "small" step, but still).

We always warned of the dangers of not properly exposing Sarah Palin, and getting her out of politics for good. While some people might be happy that Sarah Palin causes constant chaos, whatever she does, Palin also showed that even an extreme, nasty politician "can get away with it." She certainly provided the "blueprint" for others, including Donald Trump, who then knew that one could say and do the most outrageous things, and will still not be properly challenged by the media. On the contrary, you will get invited over and over again by the media, because outrageous statements also provide great ratings. Stupidity sells, and the combination "extremism, celebrity & stupidity" makes you apparently irrestible.

So that's where we are now. Donald Trump will the Republican nominee. Sarah Palin won't be his VP, but her ugly legacy remains. However, it will be interesting what happens next, as many conservatives now "morphed" into the most determined enemies of Sarah Palin, Will there be a new attempt for full exposure of this wicked woman? I doubt it, but it is certainly not totally impossible.

Maybe, Yes, Donald Trump is dangerous. I believe that he is capable of doing many evil things. He will not forget. He is even more vindictive than Sarah Palin, judging by his constant threats against critics.

Thursday, May 5, 2016

So now have the situation where only Hillary Clinton stands between peace and world chaos. Well done, GOP! You as a party have successfully dug your own grave, and every sane person can now only pray that the voters won't be dumb enough to vote for Donald Trump in the general election.

What I personally find incredibly strange that our "main subject" over the years, this woman called Sarah Palin, who already as a politician was as dead as one can be, has now been "resurrected" once again, by being very close to the designated GOP candidate. This feels just incredibly surreal.

Of course it was nice to see that Sarah actually did not help Trump at all during the campaign so far, just the opposite. She merely made headlines for giving weird and disjointed speeches, and turned GOP voters off. Still, it feels strange. But in any case, if anyone can stop Donald Trump, it is probably Sarah Palin.

I personally do not believe that voters will be dumb enough to give Donald Trump a majority, but this is definitely not totally impossible. Propaganda and demagoguery can be very, very effective, and just like Donald Trump bullied his way through the GOP primary, he will try to bully his way into the White House.

One of the biggest problems during this GOP primary was the fact that Donald Trump was given huge amounts of free time by the US media. He did not have to run an expensive campaign, as he was given virtually all the PR he needed for free.

What matters to us is the truth

"The chief thing is to have a soul that loves the truth and harbors it where it finds it. And another thing: the truth requires constant repetition, because error is being preached about us all the time, and not only by isolated individuals but by the masses. In newspapers and encyclopedias, in schools and universities, everywhere error rides high and basks in the consciousness of having the majority on its side."-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in a letter to Johann Peter Eckermann, December 16, 1828

Sensational revelations in the "Trig emails" about Sarah Palin's pregnancy

POST 1 - CLICK TO READ: Lisa Demer, journalist at the Anchorage Daily News, asked all the right questions about Sarah Palin's pregnancy with Trig, and asked directly for Trig's birth certificate - but was met by stonewalling and insults from Palin's staffPOST 2 - CLICK TO READ: More discoveries in Sarah Palin's released emails: Palin's team wanted to launch "pre-emptive strike" against ADN-story about Palin's pregnancy, was shocked that Lisa Demer tried to put together a "timeline" of Bristol's pregnancies and contacted schools and hospitals

POST 3 - CLICK TO READ: Newly released email suggests that five weeks after Trig's official birth, Sarah Palin didn't have a birth certificate for Trig

- UPDATE: Palin's spokesperson wants to "cut the ADN off" if they continue to ask questions about Trig's birth

- UPDATE 2: ADN-editor Pat Dougherty to Bill McAllister: "The judgment of your office to go after the Daily News on this Trig stuff would constitute malpractice"

Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy

Download all posts by Politicalgates about the faked pregnancy as PDF-document HERE.

Palin-biographer Joe McGinniss: "I think the Politicalgates archives are the best single available resource for anyone wondering why questions are still being asked about Sarah really being Trig’s birth mother." (from August 28, 2011)

We break the "Spiral of Silence" - Read the details about the "biggest hoax in American political history!"

Commentary at "The Guardian"

Commentary at "The Guardian" (UK) from April 28, 2011, written by Kathleen Baker, editor of Politicalgates, about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy: "Sarah Palin, unreliable narrator"

How she got away with it

How Sarah Palin finally got away with the Trig pregnancy hoax, despite a mountain of evidence: Read this overview

Download Sarah Palin Trig pregnancy research paper

Download the research paper regarding Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy and the role of the media, written by Brad Scharlott, Associate Professor for Journalism at Northern Kentucky University - CLICK HERE.

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